


Love and T-Shirts

by tridecaphilia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mates, Mentioned Kate Argent, Post-Nogitsune, Scent Marking, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tridecaphilia/pseuds/tridecaphilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giving Stiles his shirt made sense at the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and T-Shirts

Derek doesn’t know if it’s that they’re down a fighter, or that he’s trying to distract himself from the nogitsune, or if it’s just some way of feeling less helpless. What he does know is that Stiles has been working out. It shows—Stiles’ overlarge shirts don’t hide him as well as they used to. They’re too big to ever be tight, but he’s not exactly swimming in them anymore. And Stiles looks… uncomfortable. Maybe Derek is just watching too closely, or imagining it, but he can see Stiles hunching in on himself more than usual.

He’s not sure why he decides to handle it the way he does. But after a fight where they all end up dirty and Stiles’ clothes end up ripped, Derek summarily drags Stiles back to his loft to get cleaned up.

Stiles protests, of course. “Derek, there’s seriously no point to this. I have clothes at home.”

Derek doesn’t listen, of course. “My place is closer.” It’s true, anyway.

They reach the loft and Stiles takes the first shower. While he’s in there, Derek sets out a set of his own clothes by the bathroom door.

Stiles doesn’t protest or even question it when he gets out of the shower. Instead he grabs the clothes, changes in the bathroom, and comes out. Derek doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Stiles stands up straighter. He’ll never have perfect posture, but he looks less like he’s trying to vanish into himself.

“Thanks,” Stiles says quietly. “I’ll bring them back tomorrow.”

“Keep them,” Derek says, trying to sound offhanded about it. “I have more.”

Stiles nods slowly.

~

Another fight, and Stiles is shivering. Deaton has started to teach him magic, to keep him safe from possession and bolster the pack’s strength. Stiles is good at it, but every time he uses more than a simple cantrip his temperature drops like it had when the nogitsune first separated from him.

Without a word, Derek shucks his jacket and drapes it over Stiles’ shoulders. Stiles pulls it closer.

“Thanks,” he mutters. Then, “I’ll give it back.”

“You don’t have to,” Derek says.

~

Weeks have passed, and there is _no way_ Stiles hasn’t noticed by now. If his clothes get ripped in a fight, or they’re out in a storm, or he gets too cold—no matter what the excuse, Derek invites him back to his place and Stiles walks out a few hours later or the next morning wearing Derek’s clothes. He’s even started inviting Stiles over when his dad is working late, and giving Stiles a shirt and sweatpants of his to wear as pajamas. He knows the pack has noticed by now. It’s impossible _not_ to; Stiles has started wearing the clothes Derek gives him even when he doesn’t have the excuse of his own being torn or dirty. He stands up straighter when he does, and Derek tries not to analyze that too much. He also tries not to analyze that he’s started giving Stiles his older shirts, the ones he’s worn so many times that no amount of washing will keep them from smelling like him. He tries not to analyze it when Stiles wears Derek’s clothes more often than he does his own.

He manages, mostly, until Stiles comes to a pack meeting wearing the last shirt Derek gave him, which smells so much like Derek that there’s no way Stiles even washed it before wearing it again. Stiles smells like Derek, and it sends a thrill up his spine.

Derek can see the pack studiously ignoring the scent. Stiles, though—Stiles looks more relaxed than he has lately, and although he sits two seats away from Derek he’s angled just slightly toward him.

~

Derek has given him three more shirts since that meeting. He’s started buying more shirts and shoving them into his dresser crammed between his old ones so they pick up his scent faster, and he’s _definitely_ not thinking about how weird and creepy that is. And Stiles _keeps wearing them._ He acts like nothing is weird about it while he’s walking around in a shirt that smells so much like Derek his own scent is practically drowned out.

Derek keeps finding excuses to give Stiles his clothes. Stiles keeps wearing them. And even though the pack has noticed, even though Stiles still turns toward Derek during pack meetings and still doesn’t wash the shirts Derek gives him before wearing them again, neither of them say anything.

Derek is literally going to go insane.

~

The next time Derek brings Stiles back to his loft, to stay the night while his dad works late, Stiles stops him before he can get a new shirt. “Hey,” he says. He shifts from foot to foot, clearly nervous about something. “Can I—can I ask you something?”

Derek nods.

Stiles hesitates. “Why do you keep giving me your clothes?”

And that is the question Derek has both been waiting for and dreading. He knew Stiles would ask eventually—but he doesn’t really want to explain. He’s done a good job not even explaining it to _himself._

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Stiles isn’t done. “I mean at first I was like, okay weird but whatever, but you kept doing it and—and I think maybe I know what it is but I’m probably wrong so I just need you to _tell_ me, okay, because this is getting really confusing and I just need to _know._ ”

Derek blinks, trying to figure out how to answer that. “I…” he starts, and then stops. “You looked uncomfortable,” he says.

Stiles frowns. Whatever he was expecting, that clearly wasn’t it. “Since when do you care if I’m uncomfortable? Since when do you even notice?”

Derek wants to say something, something about how just because he doesn’t broadcast everything he thinks and notices doesn’t mean he doesn’t think it and notice it. Instead his traitor mouth says, “I care because it’s you.”

Stiles’ mouth opens into a tiny ‘o’ of surprise. “So, um. Why did you decide giving me your clothes was the best way to solve that? I mean, not that it wasn’t the best way to solve that, I mean I actually really like your clothes, and wearing them, not in like a creepy way or anything just that they’re soft and they smell good and oh my god I’m going to stop talking now.”

Derek stares. After a long moment of silence, he clears his throat. “You… like wearing them?”

“Well yeah. I mean I keep wearing them, don’t I? And you did give them to me, I thought that meant you wanted me to wear them…”

“It did. Does. I do.” Stiles is apparently not the only one here who can run his mouth into the ground. “I… I like seeing you in them.” And smelling him in them, but Derek fortunately has the self-control not to say that.

“Okay.” There’s another awkward pause before Stiles asks, “Why?”

Derek frowns. “Why what?”

“Why do you like seeing me in them? Is this, like, a pack thing, or a weird possessive werewolf thing, or is this more like that jock thing of giving your girlfriend your letterman jacket?”

“That last one,” Derek admits.

Stiles nods slowly, fidgeting. “So. Um. Just—just to be clear. You gave me your clothes, because you wanted me to wear them, because you like me?”

Derek nods.

Stiles’ face splits into a huge grin. “I _thought_ so,” he says happily. “Or hoped so, anyway. But then you didn’t say anything when I was wearing them all the time—”

“You were wearing them to get my attention?” Derek asks.

Stiles gives him a look. “I didn’t _wash_ them,” he says very slowly, enunciating each word. Then his motor mouth kicks in again and he’s talking at his normal mile a minute. “Dude, I’ve been walking around smelling so much like you _I_ can smell it and you didn’t get the hint that maybe I like that? Maybe I want to smell _more_ like you? Maybe—”

Stiles doesn’t get any more words out because Derek is kissing him.

Stiles is still for all of a second before he’s kissing Derek back, arms thrown around Derek. Derek fists one hand in Stiles’ hair and lets the other roam all over his back.

“Oh my god,” Stiles says between kisses, “you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Derek growls. By some miracle, Stiles does.

~

Hands tracing each other’s bodies. Derek’s mouth leaving marks on Stiles’ neck and shoulders. Stiles’ hands on Derek’s neck and Derek’s hands on Stiles’ face and kissing and tasting each other and leaving their taste in each other’s mouths. Bodies pressed together, mixing their scents through clothes that still have yet to come off. Stiles’ back pressed to Derek’s chest, sheets that smell like Derek and now a little bit like Stiles pulled over them, Derek’s hand smoothing Stiles’ hair and running over his chest.

It’s not sex. Derek won’t risk hurting Stiles by rushing, not after the scars Kate left on him, no matter how sure Stiles is. It’s something else. It’s closeness, and declarations of forever pressed into each other’s skin. It’s a promise of _them_ and a home in each other’s arms.


End file.
